National parks of the United Kingdom

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The national parks of the United Kingdom (Welsh: parciau cenedlaethol; Scottish Gaelic: pàircean nàiseanta) are 15 areas of relatively undeveloped and scenic landscape across the country. Despite their name, they are quite different from national parks in many other countries, which are usually owned and managed by governments as protected community resources, and which do not usually include permanent human communities. In the United Kingdom, an area designated as a national park may include substantial settlements and human land uses that are often integral parts of the landscape. Land within national parks remains largely in private ownership; for example, nearly one-fifth of South Downs National Park's area, 70,699 acres (28,611 hectares), is owned by eight members of the gentry. These parks are therefore not national parks, according to the internationally accepted standard of the IUCN but they are areas of outstanding landscape where planning controls are significantly more restrictive...

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